Received: 19 December 2017 Revised: 22 April 2018 Accepted: 17 May 2018

DOI: 10.1111/phc3.12542

ARTICLE

Fittingness
Christopher Howard

University of North Carolina

Correspondence
Christopher Howard, University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC.
Email: howard.chrism@gmail.com
Abstract
The normative notion of fittingness figures saliently in the
work of a number of ethical theorists writing in the late
nineteenth and mid‐twentieth centuries and has in recent
years regained prominence, occupying an important place
in the theoretical tool kits of a range of contemporary
writers. Yet the notion remains strikingly undertheorized.
This article offers a (partial) remedy. I proceed by canvassing
a number of attempts to analyze the fittingness relation in
other terms, arguing that none is fully adequate. In
explaining why various analyses of fittingness fail, I draw
into relief certain of the relation's constitutive features
and spotlight some of its interesting and important connec-
tions to various other properties. Along the way, I highlight
the relation's relevance to a number of ongoing debates in
normative and metanormative philosophy. I conclude by
indicating some directions for further research.

1 | I N T RO DU CT I O N

When I despise a despicable villain, you admire an admirable piece of art, Bert believes a credible proposition, and
Daisy desires a desirable outcome, there is a certain status that our attitudes each have in common: they are merited,
apt, correct, or fitting. And the same can truly be said of the attitudes of individuals who, for example, fear the fear-
some, laud the laudable, love the lovable, blame the blameworthy, or are amused by the amusing. In all of these cases,
the attitudes or responses in question are merited by—or fitting with respect to—their objects. But there is an impor-
tant question about how this relation of fittingness should be understood. As we'll see, this relation figures promi-
nently in a number of debates in normative and metanormative philosophy, and so our understanding of it can
carry a range of significant implications for these debates. So the time is ripe to get clear about fit. This article's
aim is to help us to do so.
The call for a Philosophy Compass piece on fittingness would seem to presuppose that there is a distinctive and
intelligible notion—‘fittingness’—that could usefully constitute the subject matter of a survey article. However,

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https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12542
2 of 14 HOWARD

experience suggests that some will find this presupposition suspect. Despite its modish status, it's not uncommon to
encounter both in print and in conversation a nontrivial degree of skepticism concerning our target notion's integrity.
Reports that one has prodigious difficulty “latching onto” the notion of fittingness, or that ‘fittingness’ is a cooked‐up
concept, entirely unfamiliar in ordinary thought, tend to ring loudly in Q&As for talks in which the notion of fitting-
ness centrally figures. This current tendency is, I think, unfortunate. But it is also correctable. I hope that this article
will (among other things) provide those sympathetic to the idea that fittingness is more than a mere “philosopher's
trinket”1 with some recourse in responding to their critics.
I'll proceed by canvassing a number of attempts to analyze the fittingness relation in other terms, arguing that
none is fully adequate. Given my aim to elucidate the nature of fittingness, this methodology may seem perverse.
But it is not. An analysis of a property isn't the only way to adequately characterize its nature. We can point to certain
of the property's constitutive features, and to connections it bears to other properties. In explaining why various anal-
yses of fittingness fail, this is what I'll be doing throughout the article. So my purposes aren't (entirely) destructive.
Three preliminary remarks are in order. First, I make no pretense that the arguments to follow show that a success-
ful analysis of fittingness is impossible. To attempt to establish that conclusion here would be at best silly and at worst
hubristic. Still, I do take it that the failures of the possible analyses of fittingness I'll consider are suggestive of the more
moderate conclusion that fittingness is a distinctive normative relation, not at all easily analyzed in other terms.
Second, throughout the article I'll (continue to) paraphrase “fittingness” (and its cognates) in terms of “merit” and
“worthiness” (and their cognates). This is paraphrase, not analysis, since I take it that the relation picked out by these
latter terms can't helpfully be explicated except by appeal to the relation picked out by the former. So, just as a num-
ber of writers gloss (rather than define) normative reasons as considerations that count in favor of (or against) a
response (Parfit, 2011; Scanlon, 1998), I will gloss fittingness as the relation in which a response stands to an object
when the object merits—or is worthy of—that response.2 This will be useful for a variety of reasons, not the least of
which is that it will help to distinguish our target relation from other, distinct relations that go by the same name. Our
subject is not, for example, the relation that obtains between a suit and its wearer when the former fits the latter,
since a suit might “fit” its wearer, in this sense, without its wearer being worthy of it. Neither is our subject that prop-
erty of propositions or states of affairs that's picked out by “fittingness” as it figures in constructions like “How fitting
that she came!” or “It's only fitting it would rain on our parade.”3 There are a number of important (and in some cases
obvious) differences between other sorts of fittingness and the sort of fittingness we'll be concerned with here, one
of which is that ours is a paradigmatically normative notion while other notions of fittingness are not. But these dif-
ferences won't occupy us here. My hope is only that my paraphrase helps to throw into relief that particular relation
of fittingness that is this article's focus.4
Finally, the candidate “analyses” or “accounts” of fittingness that I'll be interested in throughout the article are
intended as metaphysical accounts of the nature or essence of this relation, and so should be read as real definitions,
as opposed to linguistic or conceptual analyses.5 For the most part, nothing much turns on this: the majority of our
discussion could be recast unproblematically in a semantic or conceptual key. But the difference will sometimes mat-
ter, and I'll note as much when it does.

2 | A CR U C I A L D E S I D E RA T U M

There's wide consensus that something's being valuable is extensionally equivalent to its being fitting to value, and
that parallel equivalences hold between more specific (dis)value properties and the fittingness of certain, correspond-
ingly specific ways of (dis)valuing.6 For example, it's highly plausible that someone is admirable just in case she's fitting
to admire, that something is amusing just in case it's fitting to be amused by, that someone is deplorable just in case
he's fitting to deplore, that something is lovable just in case it's fitting to love, and that someone is contemptible just in
case he's someone toward whom it's fitting to feel contempt. What makes these claims of equivalence (and others
like them) so compelling is that a range of value properties, such as those of being admirable, amusing, and
HOWARD 3 of 14

contemptible, are clearly connected to an attitude or response of a certain kind, and the relevant connection, it
seems, isn't merely descriptive, but normative. For instance, being contemptible isn't merely a matter of being some-
one toward whom one does or could feel contempt; instead, it's a matter of being someone who merits contempt, or is
worthy of this attitude. And the same goes for a variety of other value properties, including, plausibly, the property of
being generically valuable, or valuable simpliciter: what's valuable simpliciter isn't merely what's capable of being val-
ued, the thought goes, but is instead what is correct or fitting to value.7
So I submit that it's very plausible that there must be some relation of fittingness on which the above claims of
equivalence (and others like them) come out as true. This much seems hard to resist. But this fact also provides a fixed
point from which we can evaluate the extensional adequacy of any would‐be analysis of fittingness: any such analysis
must guarantee that all of the above equivalences and their kin do come out as true. Call this the Crucial Desideratum.
Any potential analysis of fittingness that fails to respect this desideratum can, I think, for that reason be rejected.

3 | A RE A SO N S‐ BAS ED A CC OUNT

One common proposal is that fittingness should be understood in terms of (normative) reasons. On this view, what it
is for an attitude to be fitting is for there to be sufficient reason for it. This proposal sits well with the recently influ-
ential “reasons‐first” approach to normativity, which says that reasons are the fundamental elements of the norma-
tive domain, and that all other normative items can be analyzed in terms of the reason relation (Parfit, 2011;
Scanlon, 1998; Schroeder, 2007). Paired with the claim that something is valuable (simpliciter) just in case it's fitting
to value, a reasons‐based account of fittingness entails that something is valuable just in case there's sufficient reason
(for anyone) to value it. And if we add that facts about value are explanatorily posterior to—or grounded in—facts
about reasons, then we arrive a reasons‐based analysis of value (what's often called the “buck‐passing” analysis of
value), according to which what it is for something to be valuable just is for there to be sufficient reason to value
it. And this analysis of being generically valuable can of course be generalized to provide structurally similar analyses
of various other, more specific (dis)value properties. One might claim, for example, that what it is for something to be
despicable just is for there to be sufficient reason to despise it.
One virtue of a reasons‐based analysis of fittingness is that it promises to provide a simple and elegant explana-
tion of a plausible connection between fittingness and reasons. It's widely held that facts that make attitudes fitting
provide reasons for those attitudes.8 For example, if the fact that you're intelligent makes you admirable, and so
fitting to admire, then, plausibly, that fact provides a reason to admire you. Similarly, if the fact that you're empathetic
makes you fitting to love, then that fact plausibly provides a reason to love you. This purported systematic connec-
tion between fittingness and reasons clearly calls for an explanation, and a reasons‐based account of fittingness can
seem to provide one: if for an attitude to be fitting just is for there to be reasons to hold it, then it's plausible that for
a fact to contribute to the fittingness of an attitude is for that fact to provide a reason for that attitude. So, given a
reasons‐based analysis of fittingness, the fact that facts that make attitudes fitting provide reasons for those atti-
tudes follows directly from the nature of fit.9
But whatever its attractions, a reasons‐based analysis of fittingness is ultimately inadequate. That is because the
account doesn't satisfy our Crucial Desideratum. To see the problem, note first that while the claim that any fact that
makes an attitude fitting provides a reason for that attitude is plausible, its converse is not. For example, the fact that
a deplorable dictator will kill me unless I admire him is a fact that provides me with a reason to admire the dictator—
it's a fact that counts in favor of this attitude. But this fact doesn't also make my admiring the dictator fitting—it's not a
fact that makes him admirable. So not all facts that provide reasons for attitudes also make those attitudes fitting. So
there are possible cases in which I have sufficient reason to admire something, even though that thing isn't admirable
(the dictator case is plausibly one such case).10 So on a reasons‐based account of fittingness, the claim that something
is fitting to admire just in case it's admirable comes out as false. And so a reasons‐based account of fittingness doesn't
satisfy our desideratum.11
4 of 14 HOWARD

This problem isn't new—it's famously known as the “Wrong Kind of Reason” problem (the WKR problem).12 The
WKR problem tends to be cast as a problem for reasons‐based accounts of value, rather than reasons‐based accounts
of fittingness, but it should be clear that the structure of the problem is the very same in each case: there can be suffi-
cient reason (not) to value something, no matter whether that thing is valuable (fitting to value). Offering potential solu-
tions to the WKR problem (and arguing that various potential solutions on offer fail) has become a cottage industry in
the normativity literature. I won't rehearse the back‐and‐forth here. However, as a recent discussion in this journal of
the relevant literature reveals (Gertken & Kiesewetter, 2017), it's clear that, at least so far, no proposed solution to the
WKR problem has gained wide acceptance.13 And I should highlight that, if it turns out there is no adequate solution to
this problem to be had, then this would undermine not just a reasons‐based analysis of fittingness (and value), but also
the currently fashionable approach to normativity in which this analysis figures, viz., the reasons‐first approach.14

4 | V A L U E ‐ BAS ED A CC OUNT S

A second proposal is that fittingness should be analyzed in terms of value or goodness. What kind of goodness?
There are two main options; let's consider each in turn.

4.1 | Predicative goodness

First, we might try to analyze fittingness in terms of predicative goodness, or the property of being good simpliciter. As
a first pass, we might say that for an attitude to be fitting is for it to be somehow (i.e., instrumentally or
noninstrumentally) good. But this is clearly inadequate. It can be instrumentally good to value disvaluable things
(as demonstrated by the case of the terrible dictator), and valuing valuable things needn't be instrumentally good,
since valuing something valuable needn't bear any sort of facilitative relation to something of value. So, this first‐pass
account clearly doesn't meet our Crucial Desideratum. So some refinement is called for.
So suppose we restrict the sort of goodness in the analysans to noninstrumental goodness. We might hold that
for an attitude to be fitting is for it to be noninstrumentally good, or good for its own sake. The extensional compo-
nent of this account has some precedent. A number of philosophers have been attracted to the idea that fitting atti-
tudes are good for their own sakes (Brentano, 1889; Hurka, 2001; Moore, 1903; Sylvan, 2012).15 And there does
seem to be something to this idea. For example, it may seem good for its own sake to admire admirable persons
and objects, to intend to do things that are worth doing, and to desire desirable outcomes.
But we shouldn't be too quick to generalize on a small set of examples. Perhaps it's plausible that it's good for its
own sake to admire admirable people. But it seems much less plausible, for example, that a belief is good for its own
sake just in case its object is credible. Is your belief in the credible proposition that I had banana pancakes for break-
fast good for its own sake? Plausibly not.16 And it seems even less plausible that it's good for its own sake to envy the
enviable, to fear the fearsome, to be annoyed by the annoying, and to dread the dreadful. And if such attitudes aren't
good for their own sakes, then the above analysis can't satisfy our desideratum.
And there's another worry. As a metaphysical account of the nature of fittingness, the account we're considering
isn't merely an extensional thesis—it's also an explanatory one. This account entails that whenever an attitude is
fitting, that's because that attitude is noninstrumentally good. But this explanatory commitment is intuitively very
implausible. The fact that Sharon merits or is worthy of admiration—the fact that she's fitting to admire—does not
plausibly obtain in virtue of the fact that one's admiring Sharon would be good, noninstrumentally or otherwise.
For surely this latter fact isn't among the facts that might contribute to making it the case that Sharon is admirable
(and so fit to admire). And this even if we think that, as a matter of extensional fact, one's admiring Sharon insofar
as she's admirable would be good. In short, facts about the fittingness of attitudes are not plausibly grounded in facts
about the (noninstrumental) goodness of our having them.17
So an analysis of fittingness in terms of noninstrumental goodness looks explanatorily inadequate. Paired with
the highly rejectable axiological claims required for its satisfaction of our desideratum, I think this fact provides
HOWARD 5 of 14

sufficient grounds to conclude that an analysis of fittingness in terms of noninstrumental goodness is unsatisfactory.
Since fittingness can't plausibly be analyzed in terms of instrumental goodness either, it follows that fittingness can't
plausibly be analyzed in terms of goodness simpliciter.18 A notable consequence is that this rules out what some take
to be the main rival to the reasons‐first approach to normativity—a Moorean “value‐first” approach—according to
which facts about goodness simpliciter are the fundamental normative facts in terms of which all other normative
facts can be defined.19

4.2 | Attributive goodness

Now consider a second kind of goodness—attributive goodness. For something to be attributively good is for it to be
good as, or for, the kind of thing that it is. So suppose that in my enthusiasm for a well‐toasted piece of toast pro-
duced by a certain toaster I exclaim, “That's a good toaster!” In making this exclamation, I needn't be claiming that
the toaster is good simpliciter, or good for anyone; I might simply be asserting that the toaster is good qua toaster
—that the toaster is attributively good. Might fittingness be defined in terms of this kind of goodness? Perhaps we
could say that for an attitude to be fitting is for it to be good as the kind of attitude that it is.20
One initial worry for this proposal is that it's controversial whether attitudes are among the sorts of things that
can be attributively good. The standard for being good qua member of a certain kind is fixed by the nature of the kind
in question—by what the relevant kind of thing is. When the nature of a kind fixes such a standard, it's a goodness‐
fixing kind (Thomson, 2008). It follows that a thing can be attributively good (or bad) just in case it belongs to a good-
ness‐fixing kind. But not all kinds are goodness‐fixing. Take the kind pebble. What it is to be a pebble doesn't itself set
a standard that pebbles must meet if they're to be good qua pebbles. That is why there is no such thing as being good
qua pebble. And according to some authors, attitudes are (in this regard) like pebbles. Judith Thomson (2008, p. 119)
is one such author. She denies that attitude‐kinds are goodness‐fixing. If Thomson is right, then the above analysis of
fittingness in terms of attributive goodness is of course (trivially) false.21
But suppose Thomson is wrong. Grant that attitude‐kinds are goodness‐fixing. Does the account we're consid-
ering satisfy our desideratum? It seems not. For this account can meet our desideratum only if, for each attitude
that can be fitting, that attitude is attributively good just in case its object has the specific value property that it
needs to have, if the relevant attitude is to be fitting. So for example, the suggested analysis can meet our desid-
eratum only if a trusting is good qua trusting just in case its object is trustworthy and an admiring is good qua admir-
ing just in case its object is admirable. But these claims (and their parallels for the full range of attitudes that can be
fitting) seem doubtful. In general, it's far better for you—and perhaps even better simpliciter—to trust only trustwor-
thy people. But your trusting of Tristan needn't be worse as a trusting of Tristan if it turns out that Tristan isn't
trustworthy. Similarly, my admiring of Angie isn't a better admiring of Angie than it would have been if Angie hadn't
been as admirable as she is. Consider by way of analogy the goodness‐fixing act‐kind performing of Coldplay's “Yel-
low.”22 Would Cammy's performing of Coldplay's “Yellow” have been better qua performing of Coldplay's “Yellow”
if “Yellow” had been a better song? No. The quality of a performing of a piece of music—it's goodness qua
performing of the relevant piece—depends not at all on the quality of the piece performed. Likewise, even if we
assume that attitude‐kinds are goodness‐fixing kinds, it seems that the goodness of an attitude qua attitude of
its kind needn't have anything to do with the (dis)value of its object.23 The upshot is that the analysis under con-
sideration doesn't satisfy our desideratum.24
A final worry. I suggested above that it's very plausible that facts that make attitudes fitting provide reasons for
those attitudes. It follows that if an attitude is fitting, then there is some reason for it. But there seems to be no such
necessary connection between reasons and attributive goodness.25 If my prospective performing of Nickelback's
“Rockstar” would be good qua performing of its kind, it doesn't follow that I have any reason at all to carry it out,
much less that the particular facts that would make the performing good qua performing of its kind provide me with
reasons to regale you with it. And examples like this abound. I conclude that the above analysis of fittingness in terms
of attributive goodness is (multiply) inadequate. Value‐based accounts of fittingness do not look promising.26
6 of 14 HOWARD

5 | T HE A LE T H I C V I E W

A third proposal is that fittingness should be understood as a matter of correct or accurate representation. Accord-
ing to this proposal, what it is for an attitude to be fitting is for it to accurately represent its object. This is the so‐
called “Alethic View.”27
What is it for an attitude to accurately represent its object? On Gideon Rosen's (Rosen, 2015a) gloss, it's
for the thoughts implicit in that attitude to be true. What is the nature of these “thoughts” purportedly implicit
in the attitudes? Views can differ. Some might wish to claim they're genuine beliefs (Nussbaum, 2001). But pro-
ponents of the Alethic View needn't take this tack. Instead they might hold that the thoughts implicit in the
attitudes are, as Rosen suggests, belief‐like strikings or seemings—representational states that resemble Tamar
Gendler's (2008) aliefs, but which in contrast have propositional content (Rosen, 2015a, p. 71–72). But however
friends of the Alethic View might ultimately wish to characterize the nature of the thoughts in question, their
view at least requires that, like beliefs, these thoughts are accurate just in case their contents are true. The
Alethic View can thus be stated as follows: for an attitude to be fitting just is for the thoughts implicit in that
attitude to be true.
Can the Alethic View satisfy our Crucial Desideratum? It's hard to say. Grant that every attitude that can be
fitting represents its object in a certain way—that each such attitude involves certain ingredient thoughts concerning
its object. Still, to show that it satisfies our desideratum, proponents of the Alethic View would need to specify, for
each attitude that can be fitting, the contents of the thoughts implicit in that attitude, such that those contents are
true when and only when the attitude's object has the specific value property that it needs to have, if the relevant
attitude is to be fitting. So for instance, friends of the Alethic View would need to specify the contents of the
thoughts implicit in admiration, such that those contents are true when and only when the object of admiration is
admirable. Likewise, they'd need to specify the contents of the thoughts implicit in envy, such that those contents
are true when and only when the object of envy is enviable. And so on. But as far as I know, no proponent of the
Alethic View has specified the contents of the thoughts implicit in each and every kind of attitude that can be fitting,
let alone demonstrated that the results of their labor guarantee the satisfaction of our desideratum. So, that is why I
say that it's hard to say whether the Alethic View can satisfy our desideratum.28
Further, as several authors have noted, even if we grant that friends of the Alethic View could deliver on this
(substantial) promissory note, doing so would necessarily involve making highly contentious claims concerning the
contents of the thoughts implicit in each of the many attitudes that can be fitting (McHugh & Way, 2016; Schroeder,
2010). So the Alethic View is correspondingly itself quite committal: it requires making a (large) number of commit-
ments concerning the contents our attitudes' ingredient thoughts. These are weighty commitments for an analysis of
fittingness to take on. And, as McHugh and Way remark, “It would be surprising if the possibility of assessing the fit-
tingness of [our] attitudes turned on them” (McHugh & Way, 2016, p. 597).
And there's another worry. Sigrun Svavarsdóttir (2014) has observed that ascriptions of value to the objects of
certain conative and affective attitudes can play a role in the critical assessment of those attitudes. When someone
desires, admires, or loves something that's of no (or negative) value, her attitude is in a certain way criticizable—it
seems somehow misplaced, or otherwise misguided. But according to Svavarsdóttir, the kind of criticism in question
isn't plausibly captured by a charge of inaccuracy. As she writes, “the crucial mistake of those who value an object of
no value is hardly that of representing the object falsely. Rather, in some sense, they misplace or waste their emo-
tional and motivational energies on the object in question” (Svavarsdottir, 2014, p. 101).29 But if this is right, then it's
difficult to see how the Alethic View could account for this data. For on the Alethic view, for an attitude to be fitting
just is for it to represent its object accurately. So presumably an attitude is unfitting, on the Alethic View, when it
represents its object inaccurately. But if that is all there is to being an unfitting attitude, then why should unfitting
conative and affective attitudes be criticizable in the way Svavarsdóttir suggests? Proponents of the Alethic View
owe us some explanation of this fact, inasmuch as their account of the nature of fittingness seems ill‐suited to
provide one.30
HOWARD 7 of 14

6 | A DE S E R T ‐ B A S E D A C CO U N T

Many authors have observed that fittingness and desert seem intimately related. The connection is perhaps clearest
when we consider attitudes of “holding responsible.” Those who deserve blame are fitting to blame (blameworthy)
and those who deserve praise are fitting to praise (praiseworthy). But this connection between fittingness and desert
seems in fact fully general: whenever an attitude is deserved, that attitude is fitting. Thus it's plausible that those who
deserve admiration are admirable and that those who deserve contempt are contemptible. And there are yet further
parallels. In section 3 we saw that if an attitude is fitting, then the facts that make that attitude fitting plausibly pro-
vide pro tanto reasons to hold it, but the reasons provided by the facts that make an attitude fitting needn't count
decisively or sufficiently in its favor. And the same is true of desert. If an attitude (or form of treatment) is deserved,
then the facts in virtue of which that attitude is deserved plausibly provide pro tanto reasons to hold it, but these
reasons needn't be decisive or sufficient. Perhaps Baloo deserves to be criticized for his terribly clumsy performance;
still, it might be that we ought not criticize Baloo, if it would be simply too much for him to bear.
Further, as we saw in section 4.1, the fittingness (or unfittingness) of an attitude seems unaffected by consider-
ations having to do with the instrumental goodness (or badness) of holding it. The fact that a terrible dictator will kill
you unless you admire him is a fact in virtue of which your admiring the dictator would be good. But this fact doesn't
also make your admiring the dictator fitting. And the same is true of desert. The instrumental costs and benefits of
holding an attitude are entirely irrelevant to whether that attitude is deserved. The fact that our criticism would break
Baloo's heart is a fact in virtue of which it would be bad if we criticized him, but this fact is irrelevant to whether
Baloo deserves to be criticized.31
These considerations, perhaps among others, have led some authors to (tacitly or overtly) equate desert with
fittingness (Feinberg, 1970, p. 82; Zimmerman, 2015, p. 57). And indeed several (other) authors have explicitly
suggested an analysis of the latter in terms of the former (King, 2012; Thomson, 2008). According to this proposal,
what it is for an attitude to be fitting just is for its object to deserve it.
This is, I think, easily the most plausible candidate we've considered. But still the fit is not perfect. That is because
the analysis fails to satisfy our Crucial Desideratum. For although it's very plausible that every deserved attitude is
fitting, it's not similarly plausible that every fitting attitude is deserved. Beliefs are fitting when (and only when) they
take credible propositions as their objects, but propositions—even credible ones—do not deserve to be believed. Like-
wise, if Ernesto is enviable, then it's fitting to envy him, but it would be perverse to suppose that Ernesto (enviable as
he is) deserves to be envied. And such examples are easily multiplied.32
One might object as follows: “You've been using the terms ‘merit’ and ‘fittingness’ interchangeably throughout
the article. So apparently you're happy to say that credible propositions merit belief and that enviable people merit
envy. But if you're happy to say these things, then you should be happy to say them swapping ‘merit’ for ‘desert’;
for surely the relations picked out by these terms are identical.”
In response, I deny that merit and desert are identical. I recognize that we often use our terms for these relations
interchangeably. My claim is that in some cases this is a mistake. I accept that when an attitude (or form of treatment)
is deserved, that attitude is merited. But I reject the converse. And the examples I've already given go a long way to
making this plausible: A proposition might merit, but can never deserve, belief. And although I want to stay noncom-
mittal about the matter here, I'll note in passing that there's some precedent for providing principled grounds on
which we might draw the relevant distinction. For example, according to some authors, a property is one in virtue
of which an attitude is deserved only if it is one for which the attitude's target is responsible (Miller, 1999; Pojman,
1997). A property might be one in virtue of which an attitude is merited, in contrast, even it's not one for which
the attitude's target is responsible.33 Azhar might merit admiration in virtue of his native good looks, but surely he
doesn't deserve admiration in virtue of this quality; for Azhar's native good looks are (by definition) something for
which he lacks responsibility.
Now as I said, I want to stay noncommittal (here) about the precise way in which the distinction between merit and
desert should be drawn. The account just mentioned isn't perfect; for one, it doesn't explain why, even if Ernesto is
8 of 14 HOWARD

responsible for the properties in virtue of which he's enviable, we still hesitate to say that Ernesto deserves our envy.34
But the point remains: in a range of cases, such as those given above, merit and desert can come apart. This should
make us highly optimistic that there must be some principled way in which the relevant distinction can be drawn.
So I submit that the above desert‐based account of fittingness is (extensionally) inadequate. But our discussion
highlights an important avenue for further work. Given the striking connections between these two relations, includ-
ing necessary one‐way covariance, some account of the metaphysical relationship between fittingness and desert is
clearly required. One possibility is that desert is a species of fittingness; another is that desert is a determinate of the
determinable fittingness. Both of these accounts would provide an explanation of why every deserved attitude is
fitting, while avoiding the implausible implication that every fitting attitude is deserved. And perhaps there are other
possibilities. But no suitable account of the relationship between fittingness and desert has yet been articulated,
let alone adequately defended. So much further work on this issue is needed.

7 | C O N CL U S I O N

In what's preceded we've considered possible analyses of fittingness in terms of normative reasons, goodness
simpliciter, attributive goodness, accurate representation, and desert.35 This lists exhausts every well‐developed
would‐be analysis of fittingness in the literature, plus several possibilities that have yet to be (fully) defended in
print.36 In each case, we found the suggested analysis wanting—none seems fully adequate. But in the process, we've
made explicit and discussed a number of essential features of fittingness, and highlighted various connections the
relation bears to certain other properties. So our results haven't been entirely negative. Indeed, insofar as it's helped
us to better home in our target relation, our discussion has been quite constructive.
But we're left with a number of questions. Why do facts that make attitudes fitting provide reasons for those
attitudes? In virtue of what are various specific value properties extensionally equivalent to the fittingness of certain
correspondingly specific ways of valuing? Why are all deserved attitudes fitting, but not vice versa? In general, what
explains the apparently necessary connections between fittingness and certain of the properties in terms of which
we've tried to define it?
A successful analysis of fittingness would possibly explain certain of these connections (though not all of them, at
least by itself). And as I emphasized at the outset, my aim hasn't been to argue that such an analysis is impossible. But
what if we took a different approach? What if rather than looking to an analysis of fittingness in order to explain its
connections to various other properties, we look to analyses of these other properties in terms of fittingness? For
example, if we accept a fittingness‐based account of value, then we can explain the fact that something is valuable
just in case it's fitting to value by appeal to the fact that what it is for something to be valuable just is for it to be
fitting to value. And we could offer structurally similar analyses of each of the other (dis)value properties to which
fittingness seems clearly connected. This suggestion isn't new. Fittingness‐based accounts of value have a number
of historical defenders (Brentano, 1889; Broad, 1930; Ewing, 1948). But in recent years, several authors have sought
to generalize this approach, arguing that fittingness is in fact (normatively) basic, and that all other normative prop-
erties can be analyzed in terms of fittingness (Chappell, 2012; Cullity, 2017; Howard, FC ; McHugh & Way, 2016).
If successful, this “fittingness‐first” approach would, inter alia, provide powerful explanations of the various connec-
tions between fittingness and the other normative items in terms of which we've tried to define it. This, paired with
the evident difficulty of providing an adequate analysis of fittingness, suggests that this sort of approach is, indeed,
worthy of serious investigation.
However, if we take the route I'm now recommending, a number of questions concerning the nature of fitting-
ness become particularly pressing. Here's a small but representative sample: Is fittingness an overall notion or a con-
tributory notion? Does the relation come in degrees? Can fittingness be agent‐relative (and, if so, would this require
the existence of agent‐relative value)? Are there different kinds of fittingness—for example, moral and aesthetic
fittingness? If other things are equal, is fittingness a permissive or a requiring notion (or something else altogether)?
Are attitudes the only kinds of response that can be fitting, or can actions be fitting, too?
HOWARD 9 of 14

Most of these questions have yet to be broached in the literature.37 Indeed, compared to, for example, the rea-
son relation, the structure of the fittingness relation is strikingly undertheorized. However, to the extent that fitting-
ness is (or should be) a central element of our normative theorizing, the project of investigating its structure is, to that
extent, important. My hope is that this article, together with the existing literature on this relation, will inspire further
contributions to this project.

ACKNOWLEDGEMEN T
For extremely helpful comments on earlier versions of this article, I'd like to thank Conor McHugh, Keshav Singh,
Jonathan Way, and an anonymous referee at Philosophy Compass.

ENDNOTES
1
This is paraphrase of Strawson (1962), who coolly regards fittingness as a “pitiful intellectualist trinket” (64).
2
Throughout this article I'll talk only of attitudes as being fitting (or unfitting). The issue of whether actions can be fitting is
unfortunately undertheorized in the contemporary literature. Talk of “fitting action” was once quite common (see, e.g.,
Broad, 1930; Ewing, 1948; Ross, 1939), but has, for whatever reason, fallen out of fashion. I want to stay officially neutral
about the matter here, but in principle (as of the time I'm writing this), I see no good reason to think that actions couldn't
be fitting. Why not think that just as an attitude can fit (or be merited by) its object, so too can an action fit (or be merited
by) the circumstances in which it's performed?
3
A proposition or state of affairs might merit a certain response, but such entities can never themselves be merited. When
we predicate fittingness of a certain state of affairs, our meaning, I take it, is that the obtaining of that state of affairs
somehow makes sense given what's come before, or is in keeping with some contextually salient situation. But such
assessments have nothing (essentially) to do with merit, or worthiness.
4
I'll also sometimes paraphrase “fittingness” in terms of “correctness,” though I should register that I do so with hesitation,
and only in concession to the fact that the terms are often used interchangeably in the recent literature. A number of
contemporary authors gloss the fittingness of a response as a matter of the satisfaction of a standard of correctness
that's internal to, or constitutive of, that response (McHugh & Way, 2016; Schroeder, 2010; Sharadin, 2015). But let
me emphasize two points. First, this characterization is in no way mandatory. Our target relation has a long history: it
figures saliently in the work of a number of ethical theorists writing in the late nineteenth and mid‐twentieth centuries
(Brandt, 1946; Brentano, 1889; Broad, 1930; Ewing, 1948; Sidgwick, 1890), as well as in the work of a range of more
recent writers (Feinberg, 1970; Gibbard, 1990; McDowell, 1998; Wiggins, 1987). But none of these authors ties fitting-
ness to the satisfaction of constitutive standards of correctness. (It's true that Brentano uses “correctness” [Richtigkeit] to
refer to our target relation, but it would be implausible to understand Brentano's notion of correctness as being a matter
of the satisfaction of some or other constitutive norm.) So I want to emphasize, first, that fittingness needn't be under-
stood as having anything to do with the satisfaction of constitutive standards. Second, I want to suggest we shouldn't
characterize fittingness this way, since doing so tends to invite (needless) confusion concerning its genuine or “robust”
normativity. There are standards of correctness internal to many activities—e.g., setting a table. But such standards are
merely “formally” normative: from the fact that it's correct to set a table in a certain way, nothing whatsoever follows
about whether there are genuine normative reasons to do so (on the distinction between “formal” and “robust”
normativity, see esp. McPherson, 2011, and Parfit, 2011). But not so with fittingness. As I'll highlight later, it's very plau-
sible that, necessarily, the facts that make attitudes fitting provide reasons for those attitudes and thus that, from the
fact that an attitude is fitting, it follows that there is (at least) some reason to hold it. Indeed, in this respect, correctness
and fittingness seem like rather different relations. Of course, one could simply stipulate that there are two kinds of con-
stitutive correctness, one of which is robustly normative, and equate that sort of correctness with fittingness. But what
would be the point?
5
For discussion of the notion of a metaphysical account of a property/relation, see, e.g., Fine (1994); Rosen (2015b).
6
It's worth noting that the value properties that are plausibly equivalent to the fittingness of various types of attitude are
predicative as opposed to attributive. More on the relation between fittingness and attributive value below.
7
The ideas in this paragraph are highlighted in recent work by Mark Schroeder (2010) and Jonathan Way (2012),
but go at least as far back as Brandt (1946). It's notable that not all terms that end in “‐ible” or “‐able” denote
properties that are equivalent to the fittingness of a certain type of response; some such terms are, in fact, best
understood in terms of ability, e.g., visible, legible. For a nice discussion of the semantics of the “‐ble” adjectives,
see Kjellmer (1986).
8
Widely, but not universally; see Maguire (2017) for some recent dissent. Though note that even Maguire's skepticism is
circumscribed: he argues specifically that facts that make affective attitudes fitting don't provide reasons for those
10 of 14 HOWARD

attitudes, but remains officially agnostic about whether the same is true of cognitive and conative attitudes, e.g., belief
and intention.
9
Way (2013) defends a structurally similar explanation of the purported fact that facts that make outcomes valuable provide
reasons to value (or to favor) those outcomes, viz., an explanation that appeals to a reasons‐based account of value. In fact,
Way's explanandum is really just a special case of our own, given the equivalence of being valuable with being fitting to value.
10
And we can of course generate clear counterexamples in the other direction, too—examples in which you lack sufficient
reason to hold an attitude, even though that attitude is fitting (i.e., its object is in the relevant way valuable). For instance,
if envying your enviable colleague would seriously damage your working relationship, then, plausibly, you lack sufficient
reason to do so.
11
Some philosophers believe that facts that don't make attitudes fitting can't provide reasons for those attitudes; see, e.g.,
Parfit (2011), Skorupski (2010), and Way (2012). But for defense of the claim that they can, see, inter alia, Danielsson and
Olson (2007), D'Arms and Jacobson (2000), and Howard (2016)
12
See, inter alia, D'Arms and Jacobson (2000) and Rabinowicz and Rønnow‐Rasmussen (2004).
13
Though, to be fair, not every proposed solution to the WKR problem has received adequate attention or investigation—
see especially Rowland (2013, 2017).
14
Note too that the same kinds of cases that suggest that a reasons‐based account of fittingness can't meet our desidera-
tum also indicate that a requirement‐ or permission‐based account of fittingness couldn't either. If, as many writers
assume, requirement and permissibility should be understood in terms of reasons, then the point is trivial. But even if
one rejects this idea, the point remains: just as certain facts can plausibly provide you with sufficient reason to value
something of no (or negative) value, so too can such facts plausibly require (and so permit) you to do so. So the very same
kinds of cases that rule out a reasons‐based analysis of fittingness seem to rule out requirement‐ and permission‐based
analyses, too. For discussion, see McHugh (2012).
15
Certain of the authors who defend this idea seem to be intending to offer a definition of fittingness in terms of noninstru-
mental goodness (Moore, 1903). But certain others certainly don't (Brentano, 1889; Sylvan, 2012).
16
Two points. First, the issue of what properties comprise credibility is, in principle, just as much a matter of substantive
normative dispute as the issue of what properties comprise, e.g., desirability. There's some consensus that credibility—
what merits belief—is truth. But disagreement is possible (indeed, actual), and so I'll remain neutral with respect to this
issue as far as I can. Second, no matter what properties comprise credibility, I take it that the above point remains: it's
simply implausible that a belief is noninstrumentally good just in case it takes a credible proposition as its object. The
world didn't become a better place when you came to believe that I ate pancakes for breakfast the morning that I wrote
the above sentence. For a nice recent discussion of the literature on this issue, see Côté‐Bouchard (2017).
17
This particular criticism wouldn't apply if the account under consideration were cast as a semantic or conceptual thesis.
However, if it were cast in either of these ways, then the account would face several other (at least) equally serious dif-
ficulties. For one, it would rule out as semantically or conceptually incoherent various familiar, apparently perfectly
coherent axiologies. For example, the account would seem to render incoherent the Stoic view that it's in fact disvaluable
to develop the emotional attachments essential to various valuing attitudes, even when some such attitude would take
something valuable as its object (e.g., the stoic life). Of course this Stoic view may well be substantively false, but it would
seem a significant cost of an analysis of fittingness if it committed us to thinking that proponents of this view are guilty of
serious semantic or conceptual confusion. Second, and relatedly, taken as a semantic or conceptual thesis, the account
we're considering would surely succumb to open‐question style arguments, since “being fitting to value” and “being
noninstrumentally good to value” clearly have different cognitive significance and are (equally clearly) not synonymous.
For a criticism of predicative value‐based analyses of reasons parallel to the criticism I offer above, see Howard (FC).
18
Or at least that fittingness can't plausibly be analyzed in terms of goodness simpliciter in either of the ways discussed
above. Perhaps there are other creative possibilities not yet represented in the literature, however I don't have the space
to consider such possibilities here.
19
Although a number of authors take this Moorean view to be a central alternative to the reasons‐first approach (Dancy,
2000; Hooker & Stratton‐Lake, 2006; Scanlon, 1998; Suikkanen, 2005), the view has a relative dearth of contemporary
(overt) defenders; but see Finlay (2012), Maguire (2016), and Orsi (2013) for views in the ballpark.
20
This kind of view suggested by McHugh (2012) and is (in my experience) often floated in conversation.
21
Thomson's argument proceeds by elimination: she canvasses several possibilities for what might mark an attitude as good
qua member of its kind and argues that none is acceptable. Below I consider one such possibility: that attitudes are attrib-
utively good just in case they're fitting (Thomson uses “correct,” but it's clear she has our target relation in mind).
22
For the sake of clarity, I follow Thomson (2008) in using the (admittedly awkward) imperfect nominal “performing” to
refer to the act of performing, since the (far more natural) perfect nominal “performance” is problematically ambiguous,
in that it may be used to refer either to an act of performing or to the content of a performance (viz., the thing
performed).
HOWARD 11 of 14

23
Thomson uses a similar analogy to demonstrate what is essentially the same point (Thomson, 2008, p. 120).
24
Objection: The idea that attitude‐kinds are goodness‐fixing kinds pairs naturally with the idea that attitudes have (consti-
tutive) aims: an attitude is good qua member of its kind just in case it satisfies its aim. Talk of attitudes as having “aims” is
metaphorical, but a popular interpretation of the idea is that attitudes have constitutive standards of correctness: an atti-
tude satisfies its aim just in case that attitude is correct according to its constitutive standard (see, e.g., Wedgwood,
2002). So if an attitude's being (constitutively) correct is equivalent to its being fitting, then it would seem to follow that
an attitude is good qua member of its kind just in case that attitude is fitting. And this would seem to guarantee the exten-
sional correctness of the account we're now considering. Reply: We might get off the boat in several places. We might
deny that attitude‐kinds are goodness‐fixing, à la Thomson (2008). We might deny that (constitutive) correctness is equiv-
alent to fittingness (see note 4). We might deny that if the claim that attitudes have aims should be interpreted as the
claim that attitudes have standards of correctness (or fittingness), then it's simply false (as a matter of extension) that
an attitude is good qua member of its kind just in case it satisfies its aim. The considerations raised above lend support
to any (indeed, all) of these options. I'll take no official stand on the matter here.
25
Perhaps there is some necessary connection between reasons and attributive goodness. For example, perhaps if X is
a good K, then there is reason for anyone who has reason to want a K to value X, because they have reason to
want a K (cf. Rowland, 2016; Schroeder, 2010). But this (purported) connection between reasons and attributive
goodness neither is nor entails the kind of connection that exists between reasons and fittingness: it doesn't
guarantee that if an action or attitude is good qua member of its kind, then there is a reason to perform that action
or to hold that attitude.
26
For completeness, I'll note that other possible value‐based analyses of fittingness (e.g., in terms of goodness‐for or
symbolic value) also seem extensionally (and explanatorily) inadequate. Indeed, I conjecture that there is no way of being
good, such that an attitude's being good in that way is either necessary or sufficient for that attitude's being fitting.
27
Contemporary defenders of (some version of) the Alethic View include, inter alia, Justin D'Arms and Daniel Jacobson
(D'Arms & Jacobson, 2000), Christine Tappolet (2011), and Gideon Rosen ( 2015a).
28
Why not simply say that implicit in admiration is the thought that its object is admirable, and that implicit in envy is the
thought that its object is enviable? And in general: why not say that implicit in each attitude that can be fitting is the
thought that its object has the particular value property that it needs to have, if the relevant attitude is to be fitting? This
would be in line with Wiggins' (1987) suggestion that responses (of the sort that can be fitting) can't adequately be char-
acterized without reference to the value properties coextensive with their fittingness. And, more to the point, it would
allow the Alethic View to satisfy easily our desideratum. But the proposal is problematic for two reasons. The first is
ad hominem. Most (if not all) defenders of the Alethic View aim not only to analyze fittingness in terms of accurate rep-
resentation, but also, ultimately, each of the various value properties to which the fittingness of a certain type of
response is extensionally equivalent. Their program thus proceeds in two steps: first, they analyze value properties in
terms of the fittingness of various types of response; second, they analyze fittingness in terms of accurate representation.
The results are analyses of value properties that each tell us that what it is for something to have a certain value property
is for the thoughts implicit in a certain type of response to be true (of that thing). But the proposal we're considering
would render such analyses absurd. Proponents of the Alethic View would be committed, e.g., to the claim that what it
is for X to be admirable is for it to be true that X is admirable. And even if not strictly speaking circular, this analysis is
clearly explanatorily inadequate, since the fact that something is true cannot explain why it's the case; rather, the order
of explanation runs the other way, such that whenever something is true, that's because it's the case. So proponents of
the Alethic View with the relevant explanatory ambitions shouldn't be tempted by the proposal under consideration
(indeed, Rosen, 2015a, explicitly rejects the relevant proposal, on precisely the grounds just mentioned). The second rea-
son the proposal we're considering is problematic is not ad hominem, and comparatively straightforward; viz., it's simply
implausible that implicit in each attitude that can be fitting is the thought that its object has the value property that it
would need to have, in order for the relevant attitude to be fitting. For surely I can admire someone without thinking
(in the relevant sense) that she is admirable. If my attitude includes the thoughts that its object is intelligent, steadfast,
and kind, but fails to include the thought that its object is admirable, specifically, does that thereby disqualify my attitude
as admiration? Surely not. And this point isn't new; to my knowledge, Ewing (1948, p. 158) was the first to make it, but it's
accepted even by certain proponents of the Alethic View (e.g., Tappolet, 2011, p. 128–129). So the suggestion under con-
sideration seems not at all promising.
29
The core thought here is that there is a kind of mistake that one makes in valuing an object of insufficient value
that is different in kind from the mistake that one makes in, e.g., believing falsely. Perhaps if conative and affective
attitudes really do represent their objects in certain ways, and the object of such an attitude is not in fact the way
it's represented to be, then the attitude in question is also criticizable for its inaccuracy. But this would in no way
impugn Svavarsdóttir's suggestion that unfitting conative and affective attitudes are criticizable in the (distinct) way
she suggests, i.e., in a way that isn't plausibly captured by a charge of inaccuracy. Thanks to Sigrun Svavarsdóttir for
helpful conversation.
12 of 14 HOWARD

30
One final worry worth noting is that the Alethic View may be unable to accommodate the previously mentioned plausible
hypothesis that any fact that makes an attitude fitting provides a reason for that attitude, and thus that, from the fact that
an attitude is fitting, it follows that there is at least some reason to hold it. This is because it's far from clear that, neces-
sarily, there are reasons to have accurate mental representations of the sorts (purportedly) involved in every kind of
attitude that can be fitting, much less that any fact that makes accurate a mental representation (of a relevant sort) pro-
vides a reason for the attitude in which that representation (purportedly) essentially figures. For a criticism of the Alethic
View along these lines, see Sharadin (2015). I should acknowledge that certain defenders of the Alethic View likely won't
be troubled by this worry, since some of these theorists seem inclined to reject the hypothesis that I'm claiming they may
be unable to accommodate (e.g., Tappolet, 2011). Whether these theorists should be troubled, however, is a different
matter.
31
These features of desert are pointed out by Feinberg (1970) and a number of others after him.
32
In general, in any case in which the object of a fitting attitude is a proposition or state of affairs, the attitude seems not to
be deserved (by its object). It also seems implausible that actions could deserve to be intended, even if it's fitting to intend
to perform them. It's tempting to conjecture that it's a necessary condition on an attitude's being deserved that it take a
person as its object. Still, experience reveals that people (philosophers) are rather divided on the question of whether, for
example, an admirable piece of artwork can deserve admiration. But in any case, a fitting attitude's taking a person as its
object clearly isn't sufficient for its being deserved, as the above example of Ernesto demonstrates.
33
I talk here of properties obtaining in virtue of, or being grounded in, other properties, but this is only shorthand; officially, I
take grounding to be a relation between facts, not properties.
34
For another, it's not clear that desert really does require responsibility; see Feldman (1995).
35
We also considered (and rejected) requirement‐ and permission‐based accounts; see note 14.
36
The reader will likely notice that each of the candidate analyses we've considered is an analysis of fittingness in terms of a
certain kind of normative item (with the exception of the Alethic View, which may or may not be an analysis of fittingness
in terms of something normative, depending on whether it's assumed that certain types of response represent their
objects as having normative properties). This is because, as far as I'm aware, there are no well‐developed naturalistic anal-
yses of fittingness in the literature and, I confess, I find it difficult to imagine what a possibly adequate naturalistic account
of the relation would look like. (Perhaps one way to go would be some kind of ideal observer account, or the Jackson‐
style route where fittingness would get analyzed in terms of some sprawling disjunctive naturalistic property. But both
these options raise a number of independent issues that lie far beyond the scope of this article.)
37
The issue of whether fittingness is a contributory or overall notion has already made its way into the literature (see, e.g.,
Howard, FC; Maguire, 2017; McHugh & Way, 2016, and Schroeder, 2010). And so too has the issue of whether fitting-
ness can be agent‐relative; see Olson (2009) and Howard (MS). And see note 2 for my (tentative) view about whether
actions can be fitting.

ORCID
Christopher Howard http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3783-9355

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Christopher Howard is currently a Research Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. He works primarily in ethics and metaethics and has related interests in epistemology,
political philosophy, and the history of ethics. His work has appeared, among other places, in Oxford Studies in
Metaethics, Philosophical Studies, and Thought: A Journal of Philosophy.

How to cite this article: Howard C. Fittingness. Philosophy Compass. 2018;e12542. https://doi.org/10.1111/
phc3.12542